


Socks! or A Delicate and Unpredictable Operation

by agirlsname



Series: New Year's Kiss [4]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff and Crack, M/M, New Year's Eve, POV John Watson, the sock index
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27861622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlsname/pseuds/agirlsname
Summary: Sometimes, celebrating New Year's Eve with Sherlock Holmes means watching him sort his socks.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Series: New Year's Kiss [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/926577
Comments: 52
Kudos: 128





	Socks! or A Delicate and Unpredictable Operation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Akhenatensmummy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akhenatensmummy/gifts).
  * Translation into 中文-普通话 國語 available: [【授权翻译】袜子！索引！](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28455504) by [BakerSt233B](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BakerSt233B/pseuds/BakerSt233B)



> HAPPY NEW YEAR!
> 
> The idea for this fic came during one of the highlights of 2020; the trip to meet my beta and friend Akhenaten's Mummy for the first time. One day she was sorting her socks and said something that sounded so much like Sherlock that I had to write it down. I thought I was going to include it as a detail in a story sometime - but she kept talking, and I kept taking notes, and in the end there was so much material that I realised it was an entire story of its own. I was also laughing so much I could barely breathe!
> 
> Then came the beta-read, and I had to edit new things in because Akhenaten's Mummy KEEPS saying hilarious things about socks. At one point I'd written that when sorting socks, new variables keep turning up and disappearing, which she marked as incorrect with the comment that from personal experience, new variables never disappear. Once they're there, they're there for evermore. Apologies for this grave error on my part - this issue is not to be taken lightly, people!!
> 
> So, my dearest Akhenaten, this fic is for you. Thank you for the beta and thank you for being YOU - I love you so much!

It is the slowest New Year’s Eve of John Watson’s life. At six pm, his boyfriend still hasn’t said a single word to him during the whole day. No, Sherlock Holmes has been lying stock-still on the couch, eyes closed and fingers steepled below his chin.

John had thought that since New Year is a bit of a special time for them, being their anniversary, Sherlock wouldn’t forget that the holiday was upon them the way he used to. Three years ago, the great detective almost missed the most important clue on a case because he was unaware of the date. The two years to follow have been… well, romantic in their own ways, and Sherlock has been pretty keen on kissing at midnight.

The chances of that happening this year seem more slim with every passing minute. When Sherlock has a project on, he can zone out completely for days. It happens when he’s on a case, of course, but then he communicates more; when it’s an experiment, he simply disappears into his own world. He’s barely slept at all for the last few days; and when he did, he shot out of bed as soon as he woke and picked up where he left off. It usually ends with a day of lying on the couch just like this, filing the results in his mind palace.

John is pretty sure that Sherlock has no sense of time when this happens, and that right now he has no idea how many days have passed. John did try to tell him this morning, but Sherlock didn’t move a muscle – probably didn’t hear John at all.

That’s not unusual, and it doesn’t really bother John. It’s just that everyone is busy today with dinners and parties, and John is bored. At seven, he decides to cook a proper dinner anyway. He might as well; he’s bought groceries for spaghetti bolognese from scratch, with grated cheese and spring onions on the side, and cooking will keep him busy.

At eight he sets the table (he'd spent a ridiculous amount of time cleaning it off during the afternoon), lights a candle and walks into the living room.

“Sherlock?” he tries. Sherlock’s nose twitches, which John takes as a good sign. “Dinner’s served.”

“No thank you.” Sherlock doesn’t even open his eyes.

“I thought we could celebrate the new year.”

No reply. John sighs. Might as well take some food down to Mrs Hudson, then, if she’s home.

Mrs Hudson eagerly lets him in, telling him all about how Mrs Turner was supposed to come over and gossip with her until the start of the new year, but now she has a fever. They eat the spaghetti and pass the time playing cards and watching telly. Around eleven thirty, John goes back upstairs to see if Sherlock is out of his mind palace yet.

He is. He’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, hair a mess and dressing gown half off his shoulder. Before him on the coffee table is a large heap of black socks.

“Finished with the mind palace business, then?” John says when he enters.

“Yes”, Sherlock says distractedly, holding up a sock and looking at it closely.

John wonders if this is somehow an extension of the experiment he’s been busy with – but that doesn’t seem very likely, as the experiment appeared to mostly involve bile, and John fails to see the connection between bile and socks. He watches Sherlock for a few moments before asking: “What are you doing now?”

Sherlock frowns deeply at the sock in his hand. “Organising my sock index.” He puts it neatly on the back of the couch to his left, where a few other socks are laid out carefully. Then he picks up a new one from a pile.

“You’re sorting socks”, John says. “Are you joking?”

“Obviously not”, Sherlock sneers, gesturing at the heap of unsorted socks in front of him.

John wasn’t annoyed before, because he knows what Sherlock is like when in his mind palace – but this? Turning down dinner his boyfriend made him on New Year’s Eve in favour of sorting his bloody laundry? The mind palace John respects, the sock index not so much.

“Do you have to do it _right now_?” John asks.

“Yes”, Sherlock simply replies, probably missing John’s tone. “I’ve been putting it off for days.”

“Any idea how long it’ll take? It’s almost midnight.”

Sherlock’s frown deepens. “This is a delicate and unpredictable operation. New variables keep turning up, which makes the duration impossible to estimate.”

“Right.” John nods to himself and turns to leave the room. But then he hears the first, premature fireworks outside, and irritation gets the better of him. He turns back to Sherlock. “No – what’s the deal with that ruddy sock index? These aren’t even different colours – they’re all black!”

“Yes, but they need to be sorted according to a precise system”, Sherlock says, sounding as if everyone on the planet knows this.

“What system?” John snaps.

“As you have observed, they are first categorised according to colour.” Sherlock puts a sock to his right, picks up a new one and keeps talking with his detached I’m-on-a-case-and-it’s-important voice. “There are two major subcategories based on the knit of the welt. Once I have sorted every sock into one of the two, I have to go through them all again, as despite the welts being of the same knit they can be of subtly different depths. And then of course, once I’ve had them for a while I have to sort them based on degree of wear as well, or they will look odd.”

John tries to suppress a smile. He’s never been good at staying cross with Sherlock for long. Especially not this side of Sherlock – the domestic one – the one only John ever gets to see. Sherlock is always… _Sherlock_ , and when he is _Sherlock_ facing ordinary tasks like doing laundry, he is somehow particularly endearing.

“And here I thought your sock index was some intricate system you’d come up with just for the sake of it. Didn’t realise you keep it because you _have_ to.”

“It's not intricate at all. It’s the simplest system needed to cope with all the variables. That has absolutely nothing to do with me.”

“Uh-huh.” John sits down in his chair, rests his chin on the fingers of his right hand and watches Sherlock carefully eye the socks one by one. “I’d take you for the type of person to buy all your socks from the same poncy place, though. Then they’d all be the same.”

“Yes!” Sherlock shouts with a surprising amount of heat. “I did! I bought all these socks that are ostensibly the same, in order to avoid this very problem! I went to the same shop and bought the same brand only months apart. They just keep varying their manufacturing specification! That’s not my fault!”

“Of course not.” John suspects that he has a silly, besotted look on his face, but it doesn’t matter, because this adorable idiot never looks up from his scrutiny of the socks. “Well, you just let me know when you’re done.”

Sherlock merely grunts. John is no longer annoyed; he’ll just spend the night relaxing next to his crazy boyfriend. At least he’s out of his own head and communicating, in his own way.

John picks up a half-read novel from the side table and continues where he left off. After a while, there’s an enraged growl from the couch. “The smug bastard!”

John looks up. “Who?”

Sherlock drags a hand through his hair, leaving it even wilder than before. “Bloody Mycroft! Look at this – these socks don’t match any of the ones I had before. I’ll have to come up with a whole new subcategory!”

It seems far-fetched that Mycroft had set out to disrupt Sherlock’s sock index when he gave him black socks for Christmas. John thought it was sort of nice, giving Sherlock something practical he would no doubt have use for – and apparently Sherlock _has_ already used them.

“I don’t think Mycroft knows _that_ much about your sock index-”

“Oh, don’t underestimate him, John”, Sherlock says with a dangerous smile. “Never underestimate him. Mycroft never does anything by chance, and there’s nothing he shies away from when it comes to tormenting me. This is why you should never trust him – he can’t even buy a Christmas present without being sadistic!”

John can’t help giggling at this point. Sherlock ignores him in favour of furiously studying socks inches from his nose – any moment now, smoke will come out of his ears. He sorts socks with an intensity John never imagined the task could inspire, ranting about Mycroft’s evil ways – and God help him, John loves him so much.

The minutes tick down towards the end of the year. Sherlock falls silent, fuming quietly over the new variables throwing his system off – before he suddenly looks up, eyes landing on John for the first time in days.

“ _John!_ ”

“Hm?” John asks mildly, putting a finger on the page to mark where he stopped reading.

“Did you put a black sock in the wash?” Sherlock stares at him as if he’s a murder suspect.

“Um… no?”

“No? Look at this!” Sherlock waves one of the socks madly, and with his other hand rifles through the heap on the table. “And there’s only one of it! John, _I don’t have any socks like that!_ ”

“Well, neither do I”, John replies. His calm only seems to feed Sherlock’s despair.

“Then how did it end up here?! John!”

“Dunno. It’s not me.”

“This is exactly the sort of thing I was trying to prevent! It’s deeply distressing!” Sherlock almost looks close to tears. “Is my life not complex enough without a random sock?”

John ducks his head to hide his grin. He shouldn’t laugh at this; Sherlock seems to be genuinely upset. “I’m sorry, love, I can’t help you.”

Sherlock flies up from the couch in a flurry of blue silk and stalks across the room. John wonders if he’s coming to interrogate John about the sock until he confesses – but he stops instead before the hearth, yanking the knife out of the wood and stabbing the offending sock onto the mantelpiece.

“I suppose that’s better than shooting it”, John comments and goes back to his reading. Sherlock huffs and stomps back to the couch to finish his task.

At eleven fifty-nine, John gets up from his chair, stretches his arms behind his back, then walks over to the couch. It strikes him, as it daily does, how incredibly beautiful Sherlock is – even when he’s sulking. His perfect lips are turned down and his thick brows knit, making him look like a thundercloud; just as dark, ominous and awe-inspiring.

John reaches out and gently cups Sherlock’s jaw with the palm of his hand. “Hey, look up for a moment.”

Sherlock tears his eyes away from the socks and scowls at John.

“Happy new year”, John says, giving Sherlock a soft smile.

This makes Sherlock pause. “Really?” John can see his brain kick into gear, his eyes dancing over John’s face and around the room – likely analysing the comings and goings of daylight that his subconscious has registered, seeing details that no one but Sherlock knows to look for. John watches as he deduces that it is, in fact, New Year’s Eve, and that midnight is seconds away.

Sherlock stretches his neck and gives John a quick kiss on the mouth. Then he goes back to his scrutiny of the sock lying limply in his hand.

The fireworks take off in the London night, casting dramatic colours over their rooms. John goes into the kitchen and pours himself a drink, then walks over to the living room window to watch the colourful sky.

After a while he hears Sherlock get up from the couch and pad over to where John is standing. He presses his chest toJohn’s back and winds his arms around his waist. John sighs contentedly to the feel of Sherlock’s large hands resting on his belly and chest. Sherlock nuzzles his cheek against John’s hair, and John turns his head for another kiss.

This kiss is more earnest, more fitting for their January First anniversary. Sherlock’s mouth opens slowly under John’s lips, inviting him inside. John breathes in the sweet scent of him for a few moments before he ends the kiss and turns back to the fireworks outside. For a while they just stand there together, watching the sparks rain over the city.

Sherlock burrows his face in Johns shoulder. “When you _try_ to avoid a problem…” he says with a sorrowful voice. It takes John a second to realise he’s still talking about the socks, and then he can’t help his burst of giggles. Sherlock continues with a sincerity that almost breaks John’s heart: “It’s not fair. Life is not fair.”

“Darling”, John smiles and squeezes Sherlock’s hands on his chest, “why aren’t you using sock clips?”

Sherlock stills behind him. “Using what?”

John huffs a silent laugh. “Right, I know what I’m getting for your birthday!”

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to drop me prompts/vague ideas/insane wishes for future entries to this series...


End file.
